In 1989, wine merchants Gary and Lori Parker took a gamble and leased a 10,000-square-foot industrial building in a then-barren area of Sorrento Mesa.

Local developers promised the San Diego couple that progress was coming to the mostly vacant industrial area when they opened their WineSellar & Brasserie, a fine-dining restaurant and wine bar, wine shop and bottle storage warehouse on Waples Street.

Little did they know that the same year a few miles west in La Jolla, another leap of faith was taking place. Engineers at the tech startup Qualcomm bet their futures on the commercial viability of a revolutionary wireless technology known as CDMA. Everyone in San Diego knows how that turned out.

In the years since, Qualcomm has gradually transformed the Sorrento Mesa area, building a sprawling, headquarters campus that’s now home to anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000 workers. (The company employs roughly 13,000 throughout the county.)

As the tech giant blossomed, so did WineSellar & Brasserie.

Qualcomm regularly rents out the Brasserie’s private dining room and meeting room for presentations and receptions. Workers wait out rush hour traffic in its weeknight-only Casual Side wine bar. And at least a dozen Qualcomm executives lease storage lockers for their fine wines in the WineSellar’s three-story vault, where bottles are kept chilled at precisely 57 degrees.

It’s been a long and happy marriage. But a breakup could be on the horizon if Broadcom is successful in its bid to buy Qualcomm and potentially dismantle some of its local operations.

Gary Parker said the prospect is worrisome.

“If they were to go it would not be pretty for us,” he said. “We’re so remote and isolated that people wouldn’t be able to find(us) from the highway. We would definitely suffer.”

The WineSellar & Brasserie is just one of a hundred or so service businesses in Sorrento Mesa serving the employees of Qualcomm and dozens of other companies have that have popped up nearby, including Hologic, AstraZeneca, Vical, Arean Pharmaceuticals and Google.

At Fairlane Cleaners & Alterations on Pacific Heights Boulevard, owners hadn’t heard about the proposed Broadcom takeover. They said Qualcomm customers make up 30 percent of their cleaning and tailoring clientele and a sale would definitely affect their bottom line.

Two blocks west at the Euro Food Depot, a handful of customers wearing blue Qualcomm lanyards browsed the aisles of the small import market selling hard-to-find gourmet items from France like chestnut spread, pork rillettes and foie gras mousse.

Qualcomm workers could also be found indulging themselves with fries and oversized burgers at the McDonald’s on Scranton Road.

Less visible, but no less affected would be the nonporfit organizations that have relied on the philanthropy of Qualcomm for grants, gifts and low-cost use of space in its 534-seat Irwin M. Qualcomm Hall in Sorrento Mesa.

Sheri Spector, who works with the Beat ALS charity, has twice used Qualcomm Hall for its concert fundraisers called Striking A Chord. Spector said they wouldn’t have been possible without the use of the hall.

“In addition to the risk of losing jobs and prestige should Qualcomm be acquired, the community would be at risk of losing a generous company that shares its success with our community,” Spector said.

During the work week, the Sorrento Mesa area ebbs and flows with commuter activity, then quiets to a whisper in the evenings and on weekends. Lunch hours can be particularly busy for both foot and car traffic as Qualcomm workers eschew the company cafeteria for something different.

On a recent Thursday at 11:45 a.m., there were no customers inside Naseem’s Bakery & Kabob in the Sorrento Mesa Crossroads Center, just across the street from one of Qualcomm’s largest office buildings.

But over the next 20 minutes, the restaurant filled to bursting with workers arriving in groups to dine on the Persian eatery’s popular beef and lamb kabob plates. By 12:15, every table was full.

Owner Naseem Nowroozi said she has talked about the proposed takeover with many of her regular customers who work at Qualcomm. She said she hopes the deal won’t go through.

“If it happens it will impact the company but I don’t now for how long,” she said.

Nowroozi said that her restaurant has weathered the comings and goings of other companies over the years. In the past, business died down for several months and then picked back up when a new tenant replaced the old one.

It’s hard to say how the loss of thousands of Qualcomm employees could affect the whole neighborhood, but Nowroozi said she's optimistic for the long term.

“It will be hard for a while, but then things will get better,” she said.